La Crescenta

Re "As a boy suffered, many turned away," June 21 I would like to commend The Times for its diligent coverage of the unimaginable abuse inflicted on the 5-year-old boy in South Los Angeles. What can be said of the society in which we live, where such horror was ignored or excused by Los Angeles County officials as well as family and friends? Hopefully, knowledge of this boy's circumstances will lead us all to understand the obligation we have to stand up for, and speak for, those who are not able to speak for themselves.

Re "2 women are arrested in 'unbearable abuse' of boy," June 15 The article describes the hideous treatment of a 5-year-old boy at the hands of his own mother and her live-in girlfriend. The final paragraph states that "the poverty rate in the neighborhood ... is nearly triple the national average." Does The Times think that this is somehow a mitigating factor in this terrible tragedy? That somehow if these depraved women had a higher income that none of this would have happened?

Gareth Gilson Wells, 63, an architect who supervised the renovation of President Nixon's Western White House, died of a heart attack May 24 while playing golf in Maryland. A native of Glendale, Wells was raised in La Crescenta, where he was a competitive swimmer at Crescenta Valley High School. He earned his degree in architecture at UC Berkeley in 1967. In 1968, he became an architect with the General Services Administration, working out of the agency's San Francisco office. His responsibilities included supervising the renovation of La Casa Pacifica, the San Clemente mansion Nixon purchased in 1969.

Re "Clinton's big lead fades in Pennsylvania," Times/Bloomberg Poll, April 16 Each time I read a new Democratic primary poll, I feel like a dieter who jumps on a scale every hour. June August La Crescenta

Re Palm Trees: Overrated [April 10]: I couldn't agree more. Ugly, non-native blights on the landscape. I live in the hills of La Crescenta, and see them in front yards all the time, and they really don't fit in with the local mountains. And why do shopping centers (ugly enough as is) insist on filling the parking lots with them? Amen, brother. Mark Elliott La Crescenta

Regarding Fred 62 [Overrated, March 6]: Tsk! Tsk! A major mistake in your column. I first visited Fred 62 as a mere tourist six years ago. Now, as a full-time resident here, I have visited countless times and have never been disappointed. It's one of L.A.'s true greats. Alan Ireland La Crescenta

Pennsylvania Avenue slopes upward through suburban La Crescenta, runs past neatly ordered ranch-style homes and ends at the lush greenery of the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains. There, at the foothills, sits the Temple of the Universal Spirit. "It was strange to see something like this here," said Scott Francis, 53, of Silver Lake. "I was just hiking around and saw it."

It was the last parade for Army Spc. Nicholas P. Steinbacher of La Crescenta, an infantryman killed earlier this month by a roadside bomb in Iraq. On Dec. 20, as his funeral procession slowly traveled from Crippen Mortuary to St. James the Less Catholic Church, thousands of people from his hometown lined the 2 1/2 -mile route. They included veterans, firefighters, police officers, local merchants, former classmates, high school athletes and friends. Many held American flags.